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Owning bicycles is considered to be a calling of the lower income earners in Kenya. But in the past two or three decades, the wealthiest of the society earned a lucrative status in them. As a matter of trying to recollect with nostalgia, teachers comprised the biggest chunk of the buyers and riders of bicycles that have since been rendered obsolete by the motorcycles.
As the love for the bikes gets shrunken each day, a 2017 health study revealed by the British Medical Journal may convince many people especially commuters to think twice.
According to the BMJ study, commuters who cycle to their workplaces have lower risks of suffering from cancers and even cardiovascular diseases. The study further indicates that those who commute by walking or walk and cycle occasionally have lower risks as well but they have varying percentages of safety.
The study was conducted at the UK Biobank was projected at studying the relationship between the active commuting and individual susceptibility to developing cancers and cardiovascular diseases.
Cyclers are engaged in the movement of muscles. They get their bodies to be active through frequent movement of the limbs. Such is what the study cites as the primary contributor to the lowered risk levels of suffering from cancers.
“Risk reductions associated with active commuting are likely to be related to their contribution to overall daily physical activity, and potentially to cardiorespiratory fitness, for which the associations with lower mortality, CVD incidence, and cancer incidence are well established,” BMJ study notes.
The National Cancer Strategy reveals that Kenya registers about 28,000 cancer cases annually, where 22,000 of those patients fail to win the battle. NCS also ranks cancer as the third most lethal disease in Kenya, as it accounts for 7% of the mortalities in the country. The study adds that 60% of the patients in Kenya are below 75years.
This implies that if cycling culture was taken into account as one of the mitigation strategies, some of the 22,000 lives lost annually would be salvaged.
Cycling is a culture that has been embraced by some countries in Europe because of the physical exercise attached to it and its environmentally friendly nature.
Netherlands leads the way as the country that has embraced it with 43% of the population cycling at least once a day. Denmark and other countries have followed suit to ease the traffic congestion on the roads.
